Leveling the Playing Field
by lethedrop
Summary: Starscream tried to force them to acknowledge him and Skyfire tried to fool them into it, but it was when they failed that they discovered what truly mattered. Vorns later, Megatron gave Starscream a chance to bring equality to the Science Academy.


Disclaimer: I don't own _Transformers_ or make money from this fanwork.

Warnings (please tell me if I've missed anything): non-linear time, insane!Starscream, robot-gore, build-bias/racism, passing (one social identity for another, such as non-white for white or female for male), romantic physical relationship between two robots with masculine self-identifiers, mechanical/medical scene.**

* * *

Leveling the Playing Field**

* * *

"_ATTACK!" Megatron's energy-field flared with hunt-lust and hate._

_Starscream's wing launched and flipped into alt and the groundpounders folded onto their wheels. Like a roaring, furious tidal wave, the Decepticons broke upon the Iacon Science Academy._

* * *

Starscream transformed and dropped to the ground. He looked up: Skyfire soared over him, brilliant white against the darkening purple sky, and then lazily wheeled to join him on the cliff.

They stood together and gazed over the alien valley, with its yellow organic fauna and the tiny avians flitting over it. The faint cry of a feline predator reached them, and soon the whole pride vocalized its territorial claim—singing to the moons.

Starscream coaxed an insect onto his claw from its perch on his cockpit and lifted it to his optics. Multi-faceted eyes stared back at him from a pointy yellow face. Beside him, Skyfire chuckled.

Starscream chuckled too and wiggled his hand, and the insect flew away with a surprisingly loud buzz. Starscream turned to Skyfire.

"Even an ordinary organic world like this…." He trailed off, not sure what he'd wanted to say.

"For a couple of geeks like us, it's a great place to explore." Skyfire grinned at him.

Starscream smiled back. Time passed around them, unnoticed.

Finally, Starscream turned back to the valley. "Do you ever…regret?"_

* * *

Security guards scuttled like frightened insect-drones. Starscream dropped a cluster bomb on a truck in mid-transformation and raced on with a shriek of laughter.

* * *

_

Starscream laughed.

"No, seriously." Skyfire waved his hand, optics bright with overcharge. "Every last member of the Science Council can kiss my aft."

"You're going to regret this in the morning." Starscream ran a hand through the sour frustration in Skyfire's energy-field and pushed off the berth. In a junior scientist single, the medical cabinet was one stride from the berth for a Shuttle-class, and three for a Pyramid-class Seeker. Starscream grabbed a cooling pad and tossed it.

Skyfire fumbled but recovered and pressed it onto his forehead. He laid back. "It isn't fair."

Starscream was still numb.

After everything he'd sacrificed to come to Iacon, after the scholarship exam that forced them to let him in and proved he was smarter than all his work-study and rich brat peers, after disgust and loathing and pity and "you're so quiet/clever/well spoken, sometimes I forget you're a Military-build" from classmates and professors and that glitch of a convenience store manager…after professors who expected sexual favors just to give him a fraction of the grades he'd earned and administration who had to be threatened with legal action before giving him a position after graduation, when the records showed him lightyears ahead of the other candidates….

In the decacycle-and-half he'd held a three junior scientist position, he'd solved two mathematical enigmas like first-vorn busywork, he'd innovated a thirty-seven percent more efficient way to collect blue plasma samples, and he'd been close to determining how to observe blue plasma in the crucial part of the cool-down phase theorized to allow it to bond with green plasma—before the accident.

Normally in experimental physics, the occasional small, contained explosion was taken as a sign of progress. Most licensed experimenters affiliated with the Academy regularly destroyed lab equipment, and they were praised for their creativity and immediately resupplied.

Starscream had melted one inexpensive containment unit and was out—of the Academy and of the field, since no one would hire an experimenter the Academy had dropped.

No one would hire a Seeker, period.

If he'd been sparked a Worker-build…not even a flight type, just himself and free to _be_ himself…._

* * *

The chemistry wing exploded into a huge yellow mushroom cloud, with streaks of orange and noxious green and flashes of lightning. Starscream probably should have warned the troops—how many, he wondered, had just blown themselves up?_

_He burst into laughter and circled wide, then dove to harry the fleeing, screaming scientists and students with laser fire.

* * *

_

"The choices I've made have brought me to you," Skyfire said. "And I can't regret _you._"

"You gave up everything! Your whole life for your career, and your career for—"

"For myself," Skyfire said. "How could I have lived with myself if I'd abandoned the last of my self-respect and stayed behind after you—after they—"

Starscream overcorrected for atmospheric drag and shot into higher orbit. It took him astroseconds to return, but Skyfire had already gone silent.

Below them, lightning flashed through the gas giant's black clouds.

* * *

_Starscream spotted a familiar orange and black paint scheme and landed._

"_Sss—Starscream?" Rabbet stumbled and fell on his aft. His cooling fans whirred on high and some overworked part inside him whined. "What—why—"_

_Starscream smirked and stepped forward. Rabbet scooted backward, but Starscream took another step, and another, until he could place a pede on Rabbet's chassis and _shove.

_Rabbet shrieked as his chestplate bent—and cracked—and caved—_

_And then his screams cut off as Starscream reached down and ripped out his spark.

* * *

_

Starcream winced despite Skyfire's delicacy in removing the faulty circuit breaker. The area around his spark chamber was too sensitive to be operated on without anesthetic. "Councilor Rabbet makes the final decisions on explorer salaries, and he's utterly immune to my charms."

"This isn't a living wage." Skyfire pulled the new circuit breaker out of its case. "Even as much as we supplement with the energy sources we find out there, we aren't fueling well enough for self-repair to keep up. It's only a matter of time before something happens with the worst possible timing in the middle of nowhere, with worse consequences than having to scrap the assignment and return early."

"And getting our pay docked so that it's harder to fix the problem and get back out there," Starscream finished. He gingerly reached up and put his hand on Skyfire's forearm. "Leave the pessimism to me, you're bad at it. Nice effort, though."

Skyfire finished as quickly as he could and ran a hand over Starscream's wing, pouring comfort into the mesh of their energy-fields.

Something clattered further back in the alley and Skyfire craned his head to see. Starscream's sensors showed a pair of turborats fighting over an insect-drone.

"Feeling desperate?" He said lightly, calculating their safety if they slept in the alley, and the price of a motel room for the three more megacycles they'd be stuck on Cybertron, and the nutritional value of two turborats' worth of pre-processed energon.

"Not that desperate."

* * *

_The atrium walls rattled as something exploded outside. Starscream blew a hole in the floor and jumped down straight into a group of Worker-builds. They scattered, but Starscream caught sight of a blue-and-white with a yellow helm and hands, and pounced. He casually shot the two slowest of the unfamiliar ones in the back and then turned to the mech lying under him. "Hello, Circlip."

* * *

_The nebula dazzled Seeker senses, its oscillating magnetic fields and ionized gases singing down their energy-fields into their sparks.

"What does it look like to you?"

Skyfire hummed. "Less brilliant than to you, obviously, with these Worker-build optics of mine. But still beautiful."

Skyfire's energy-field sang appreciation with a descant of soft old grief. He'd been sparked with red optics.

Starscream fired a thruster in a short burst, and bumped into Skyfire with a silent clang that vibrated through their chasses. Skyfire laughed and grabbed him, then fired his own thrusters to cancel the motion. They hung still for a long moment, enjoying the laughter that rippled through their merging energy-fields.

"Skyfire?" Starscream looked up when Skyfire didn't release him.

Skyfire met his optics. "Do you mind?"

"…No." He truly didn't, odd as that was. He hated being touched—it was something to endure, if it couldn't be avoided—but somehow Skyfire failed to make his energy-field crawl.

Skyfire had never hurt him.

They admired the supernova remnant a little longer, until Starscream's fuel tanks signaled a warning. He cursed and pulled a cube from his subspace pocket.

Skyfire watched him drink without moving his arm from Starscream's waist. His energy-field meshed tighter with Starscream's, warm and soothing.

Starscream subspaced the last third of the cube for later and relaxed more heavily into Skyfire's side. Skyfire turned and embraced him. "Ok?"

"Ok." Embarrassingly, his cooling vents hitched.

Skyfire ghosted his hands over Starscream's plating, his energy-field blending with Starscream's in a gentle massage over Starscream's wings, and back, and sides. "Tell me when to back off."

"I don't want you to back off," Starscream said before he could censor himself.

Skyfire stilled, reading the discomfort in the energy-field curling around his hands, but Starscream met his optics. "Don't stop."

Skyfire's energy-field rippled with hesitance and interest. "Starscream…."

"I trust you. I want you. Don't stop."

* * *

"_What is it you want? Credits? I can see you in—that you live the rest of your life in luxury. You want your old job? I can place you in a state-of-the-art lab." Fear tangled Circlip's energy-field and made beautiful distortions in his Towers drawl._

_Starscream pulled out an energy-knife and stabbed Circlip's hand to hear how he'd scream.

* * *

_

Starscream jerked away from scalpel-pain-fear. He onlined his optics to the play of water-reflected light on the grotto walls and reached over to stroke warmth into Skyfire's chaotic energy-field.

Skyfire jerked online, but oriented quickly. "Sorry."

"As if you ever accept my apology for the same slag." Starscream rolled on top of Skyfire and let their energy-fields calm together.

"It wasn't—" Skyfire started.

"Hmm?"

"I asked him to do it. Saved every spare credit for vorns so he would."

Starscream rubbed Skyfire's shoulder. "A trauma that could have been worse is still a trauma."

Swims-Like-Dart-Fish poked its head in and sent telepathically, _Query physical/mental well-being?_

Starscream settled his mind, like holding mental cooling fans still and relaxed, and let _We're fine_ float to the top. With their energy-fields blended, Skyfire could hear it too.

Swims-Like-Dart-Fish's tentacles knotted in fascinating patterns while it politely radiated skepticism. _Radiant-Voiced-Passion dreams Burning-Through-Sky's dreams? Should ask/not ask?_

_We sometimes share dreams. Our own shoal would be rude to ask, but since you and we are alien to each other, hatchling-questions are fine, didn't we agree?_

The cephalopod broadcasted hesitation, then said, _If I say "I dream its dreams" then I mean "We are mates." So/not so with you?_

_It is so with us,_ Skyfire said.

* * *

_Circlip's vocalizer gave out after Starscream had ripped out all of his nonessential parts but before he'd really begun to play with the essential ones. His energon converter gave out less than a breem later._

"_Done so soon, Chancellor?" Starscream chuckled and scratched his claws over Circlip's spark chamber. Circlip twitched once and went limp._

_Starscream sneered and shredded through the metal. Circlip's spark fizzed hot and panicked in his claws, and Starscream flexed them to help it dissipate. Circlip's mental death-scream sizzled in Starscream's energy-field.

* * *

_

Chancellor Circlip had met the optics of all the incoming freshmen but his, Starscream realized. He tuned out the blathering about the honor of the institution and the glory of science, and cast his senses around. There was another Seeker in the hall.

No other build's energy-field felt as clear and vibrant as a Seeker's. Starscream matched the dance of energy against his field to his sensor impressions of the hall, and finally located a Shuttle-class mech with a Seeker's field, high in the second-vorn stands.

Shuttle was to Carrier as Worker was to Military. Alike enough for one to survive being reformatted into the other…and yet opposites in every way that mattered. Any reasonably smart Shuttle-class could take the work-study exams and be admitted. A Carrier-class, though, would have to be a genius and pass the scholarship exams, because the work-study exams included an interview to determine whether the candidate was of "good character" and would be a credit to the Academy—and everyone knew War-builds weren't sparked for intelligence, or sociability, or anything else desirable.

This was a bright fellow Seeker, dedicated to science, with a brave spark and a beautiful energy-field. The sort of mech Starscream had always dreamed of for a friend.

They would have to avoid each other, or the price of the reformat would be wasted. Starscream would only drag this…Shuttle…down, and no loneliness was worth doing that to someone who had given up his family, his friends, and even his identity for his dreams.

* * *

—_Commander. We're ready to level the main building—_

_Starscream flicked energon from his hands and returned Acid Storm's comm. —I'm coming out now—_

_He kicked Circlip's carcass and engaged his thrusters. Between his trine and Acid Storm's, it took less than two kliks to reduce the building to rubble._

_A familiar energy-field brushed his, a flash of red and bronze below him.

* * *

_

"I swear to you he's alive!"

"You're _dismissed_, Starscream. I won't say it again—I'll just comm security."

Starscream stalked out of the Council Chamber. Walls shuddered and melted around him, the floor oozed like molten metal, and gravity wavered from too strong to too weak and back. He reached an intersection and couldn't remember whether the atrium was right or left.

"Starscream." Someone stood beside him. Red and bronze, with a familiar energy-field.

"I'm so sorry, Starscream, is there anything I can do?"

Councilor Calidus looked at him with sympathetic optics, but there was no sympathy in his muzzy groundpounder energy-field; only lust.

Starscream shuddered, remembering this Councilor's tastes in the berth. The benefits of courting his favor had outweighed the pain, once.

"Go away," he said.

Calidus's energy-field fitzed angrily. "You should speak to me with more care, Seeker."

"Go away," Starscream repeated.

Calidus's face settled into neutrality, but his energy-field roiled. "Skyfire's fate is your fault, you know. He could have been a respected scientist by now if he hadn't taken pity on you."

"He made his own choices," Starscream said. He'd dreamed Skyfire's dreams; the guilt sank its claws deep into him, but for all his part in Skyfire's life-path, Skyfire's decisions had been his own.

"He was glitched to think his berth-toy was worth rusting in ignominy as an explorer. Some uppity Seeker that had deluded itself into thinking it could make people suffer its presence in the greatest scientific institution of our world? Of course the Science Council isn't going to pay to retrieve that War-build-loving idiot—we have a teachers' lounge to refurnish."

Starscream's anger turned the walls strange colors and the ceiling grabbed him. Or maybe that was the floor.

* * *

_Starscream dove and there was screaming and energon and a hateful energy-field flickering out and then Megatron was standing in front of him._

"_Having fun, Starscream?" His tone was mocking, but his energy-field sang of exultation and lust._

"_Yes, my lord." Starscream smirked back and rose in a way that drew attention to his sleek, elegant frame. _

_Megatron's optics brightened and his energy-field roiled, fiery and indomitable and utterly focused on Starscream._

_Megatron bore him down in the rubble and licked Worker-build energon-blood from his cockpit. His energy-field swamped Starscream's and dampened its chaos, and there were claws and pain and then Megatron's spark slammed home._

_It was hot and hungry and drove him out of himself. It didn't stop Starscream's spark from shredding itself on Skyfire's horrible stillness, but Megatron's subconscious will took the shreds and interwove with them before they could dissipate. _

_It was better to be bound with this destroyer, this chaos-bringer, than to loose sanity and eventually life to his spark's slow unraveling.

* * *

_

Their energy-fields flowed together, their limbs twined, their sparks became one.

"I love you."

* * *

_**End

* * *

**_—Sure, canon!Starscream's a lovely psychopath, but that doesn't allow for as much character development as, say, a psychotic break.

—I know what I wrote, but what did you read? Concrit welcome.

—This is a spin-off of something I've been poking at for…oh, a couple years now…that explores how to provoke Megatron x Starscream into something healthier than the mutually physically and verbally abusive antics of 80s cartoon villains. I'm a sucker for redemption!fic, but boy-howdy does canon make it a challenge. The long version could be a while, so here's testing the waters (in non-linear time. what was I thinking?)


End file.
